


Romeo Is Bleeding

by DevilDoll



Category: Captain America (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Rentboys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilDoll/pseuds/DevilDoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first thing they need to do is go out and get him something else to wear." In which Bucky is a rentboy and Steve is trying to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musesfool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/gifts).



> This is an AU in which Bucky has sex for money, though there is no actual sex in this story (SORRY). I resisted as long as I could, but musesfool is nothing if not persistent. And Sebastian Stan is clearly in cahoots with her. You can see the picture that inspired this at the end of the story. Thanks to Sebastian Stan and anyone who has ever taken a picture of him ever, and to musesfool, who is the best cheerleader a fan fiction writer could ask for. <3 <3

Steve's standing in front of the mirror, completely naked, when Bucky knocks on the bathroom door. It's a good thing he hasn't picked up his razor yet, because he jumps and almost drops his shaving brush into the sink.

"Uh, hang on," Steve says, and hastily secures a towel around his waist before he opens the door just enough to see half of Bucky's face—one blue eye, dark smudge under it like a bruise, and the corner of his mouth quirking up in something between a smile and a smirk. 

Steve asks, "Do you need something?" and just like that Bucky's eye goes sleepy-looking, eyelashes fluttering down as the corner of his mouth ticks up. 

"Can I come in?" Bucky asks, but his fingers are already curling around the edge of the door, and Steve backs up before he thinks it through, fisting one hand in the end of the towel where it's tucked against his hip bone.

Bucky walks in—walks right into Steve's bathroom while Steve is in it, which is so unexpected he can't find the words to protest—and drags the tips of his fingers across Steve's bare belly as he walks past him. Steve's stomach tightens, inside and out, and he hears himself suck in a startled breath. He suddenly feels way too warm, despite the fact he's only wearing a towel he's now hanging onto for dear life.

Bucky ambles over to the bathtub—an old-fashioned clawed monstrosity that is one of Steve's favorite things about the apartment—and perches on the edge of it. He hooks his hands over the side and smiles slowly at Steve, while Steve tries to not look as dumbfounded as he feels.

He's wearing one of Steve's T-shirts, the one he slept in, but he's put on his own pants and boots; Steve recognizes the pants, the same obscenely snug black leather things from last night. The first thing they need to do is go out and get him something else to wear, Steve thinks. Some clothes that don't make him look like—like what he isn't anymore.

"I was just about to shave," Steve says, mostly because it seems like someone should say something.

Bucky shrugs and stretches his legs out in front of him. "Don't let me stop you." 

This is weird, Steve thinks, and there's something off about it, something wrong, but he has no idea what to do or say. He goes back to the sink, tucking the towel in a little more tightly, and picks up his brush and his mug, starts to work up a nice lather. Shaving suddenly becomes a welcome ritual, something to focus on, and he tries to ignore what's happening behind him, but it's not very easy. He feels Bucky's eyes on him the whole time, as tangible as the soft tickle of the brush on his face, the smooth glide of the soap, the cool scrape of the razor as he clears away the stubble. 

Steve can't help it, his eyes keep finding Bucky in the mirror, and it's impossible to miss the way Bucky's looking at him, eyes drifting across the width of Steve's shoulders, down his back to where the towel covers him. Even before Bucky meets Steve's eyes in the mirror and gives him a frankly inviting look, Steve's figured out Bucky is trying to pay Steve back for taking him in, for letting him spend the night and eat a hot meal in comfort. The realization leaves his stomach twisting and his blood roaring in his ears.

This isn't what Steve expected—and certainly not what he intended—and he wants to protest, but he's too busy watching Bucky slither down into the tub and spread his legs a little wider, gaze innocently up at Steve as if he's not completely aware how he looks like that.

The razor takes a nick out of Steve's face, right over his cheekbone. He winces at the sting but keeps going. It'll be healed by the time he's done.

He takes his time wiping his face, checking for any spots he missed, hoping against hope that Bucky will just get up and leave, but he doesn't. He props his head on his arm and says nothing at all with words. It's all in the welcoming slant of his mouth, the lazy way he runs his thumb along the curve of his leather-covered knee, the way he took the time to put on his own pants but is still wearing Steve's shirt. If things were different, if Bucky didn't think he _owed_ Steve this, Steve would—

But things aren't different. 

Steve hangs the small face towel on the hook next to the sink and finally turns toward the tub, then steps closer until he's looming over Bucky, just to prove to both of them that he's not intimidated. "I need to get in there," he says.

"I agree," Bucky says. He reaches up and hooks his fingers over the top of Steve's towel, right below Steve's belly button, right above his—

Steve grabs Bucky's wrist, harder than he means to, and just in time, because Bucky is done being passive. He tugs at the towel, but Steve comes with it, pitches forward until he catches himself with his free hand on the wall. Steve looks down and instantly regrets it, because now he's braced above Bucky; above the enticing length of him there for the taking, above his upturned face, his pretty mouth.

"Alone. To get clean," Steve manages to breathe out. The backs of Bucky's fingers twitch against the tight skin of Steve's lower belly, and Steve tries not to moan. His thumb digs into Bucky's wrist until he feels something grind unpleasantly against something else. He realizes what he's doing and lets up, strokes the pad of his thumb across Bucky's skin in apology. But he doesn't trust him enough to let go.

Bucky's eyes drift down to their hands, to where Steve's thumb is still moving in a small circle, then back up to Steve's face. His mouth curves in a cat-like grin that makes Steve's toes curl against the floor. This is so wrong, and going somewhere it shouldn't, somewhere Steve desperately does not want it to go. He doesn't. 

Bucky lifts his chin, and his nose bumps against the corner of Steve's mouth, nuzzling. He makes a low sound in the back of his throat, a pleased hum, as the delicate curve of his upper lip brushes against Steve's chin. Steve closes his eyes and tries to gather the strength to pull away, even manages to flex his fingers against the wall, but he never gets any further than that before Bucky bites lightly at his chin and murmurs, "You know what I think, Steve? I think you need to get dirty. I think you've never been _really_ dirty."

And maybe that's true, Steve thinks, as he feels Bucky's mouth close over his lower lip, sucking softly before he slowly, so slowly pushes his tongue into Steve's too-willing mouth, but he's never felt dirtier than he does right now.

**The End**

  


[Image Description: Sebastian Stan in a bathtub wearing black leather pants. No, really, that's what it is. And I still didn't write any sex in this story. I need help.]


	2. Innocent When You Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Relax. I'm not after your virtue."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musesfool requested more rentboy!Bucky and I do as I am told.

Bucky sleeps a lot the first three days, sprawled face down in the middle of Steve's bed while Steve makes do with the couch. Then Steve is gone on Avengers business for the next two days, with the result that Bucky has been living with him for nearly a week before Steve realizes he actually doesn't sleep in any kind of established pattern at all.

When global crime-fighting isn't throwing his schedule into disarray, Steve gets up early and goes to bed late, rising refreshed and bright-eyed after only four or five hours. Bucky sleeps at random intervals, and for completely unpredictable lengths of time. Sometimes Steve wakes up at three in the morning to the sound of soft footsteps and the refrigerator being quietly raided, or the television in the bedroom painting a strip of soft blue light around the closed door. Once he even tip-toes into the bedroom in the late afternoon, nearly fifteen hours after Bucky went to sleep, and stands nervously over him until he's sure he can see his chest rising and falling, checking to make sure he's still alive.

But the dark smudges under his eyes start to fade, and the hollows behind his collarbones slowly fill in, and he stops looking so wary all the time. Being here is good for him. Steve wants it to stay that way.

Steve wakes in the dark, eyes snapping open before Bucky's even out of the bedroom, his entire body tense and still for a second until he processes where he is and who is there with him. This time, Bucky doesn't head for the kitchen, he heads right for Steve. Before Steve can even sit up or ask what's wrong, Bucky's lifting the blanket and crawling half on top of him, not even trying to avoid touching him. The couch isn't big enough to bother.

He says, "Bucky—wait--" but he notices, distantly, that his arm is curling around Bucky's waist, one of his knees slotting itself neatly between Bucky's, so even if his brain is resistant, his body knows what it wants, or at least what Bucky wants. Bucky's head settles on Steve's shoulder, and Steve is aware that his own jaw is clenched tight, the muscles in his neck and upper back rigid and unyielding.

Bucky huffs a warm laugh against Steve's throat as he slips his arm across Steve's ribs. "Relax. I'm not after your virtue. I'm just used to having someone else in the bed with me most of the time," he says. Steve's stomach twists a little thinking of all the strange bodies Bucky's molded himself against during the night. His hand tightens on Bucky's hip before he can stop it, which Bucky takes as encouragement, letting out a low, "Mmmmm," and burrowing in a little closer.

"All right," Steve says, as if it isn't already too late. As if he really has any say in the matter at all.

"Not that I'm not open to taking a run at your virtue," Bucky adds, the curve of his smile riding the words. His mouth hasn't touched Steve's since that morning in the bathroom, an embarrassing moment of weakness that Steve's brain can't seem to leave alone, especially when Bucky's voice sounds like this.

Steve doesn't bother to reply. He's getting better at not acting like he's being gutted every time Bucky makes it clear he's willing to—

Bucky slides his hand up under Steve's T-shirt, and his thumb softly strokes across one of the ridges high on Steve's stomach, the one closest to his ribs, over and over again. Steve forces himself to not move, not even twitch. Bucky doesn't try to take it any further, and he doesn't say anything else, just seems content to touch him a little. For a few minutes it's absolute torture, and Steve imagines he'll never be able to sleep, but after a bit Bucky's breathing evens out and the touch slows, then stops.

Steve lets out a long, slow breath and finally allows himself to relax into the couch cushions, taking more of Bucky's weight. Bucky shifts slightly in his sleep, all the delicate angles of him—hip, cheekbone, elbow--melting pleasantly into the places where Steve's own body has made room for him. It feels wonderful. It feels a lot like something Steve could get used to, until sleeping any other way wouldn't feel nearly as nice.

That's a problem to worry about in the morning, he decides.

Right before he drifts off, he brings his hand up and slips his fingers into Bucky's messy hair. "What am I going to do with you?" he whispers against Bucky's forehead, but that's another problem best tackled in the daylight, so Steve closes his eyes and sleeps, warm and happy and needed.

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my transformative works policy (podfics, translations, etc) for my stories [here in my AO3 profile.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilDoll/profile)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Stripped Down to the Bone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/997694) by [DreamingAngelWolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingAngelWolf/pseuds/DreamingAngelWolf)




End file.
